February 2, 2009
Today was my first day in new offices at the day job. It was quite an unsettling experience overall, what with all the packing and cleanup last week and all the setup and readjusting today. It’s disruptive, after spending five days a week, 48 weeks out of the year, in one building, then having to pull up stakes and move to another. All day today, I just felt jangled and jittery. Hopefully, I’ll get fully adjusted before long; I don’t want my productivity to suffer.
One thing I won’t miss is the old parking garage where we parked. It was located beside the old building, and it was kind of a pain. On the one hand, I liked being under roof (for the past few years, anyway; before that, I was on the roof, which sucked). On the other hand, all kinds of folks used that garage, and they were often less than considerate. For example, my own personal pet peeve involved the elevator. When I rode it from the fifth floor to the ground floor in the morning, I would be sure to send it back up for the next rider. At the end of the day, when I rode it up from ground level to the fifth floor, I always sent it back down. But very few people ever thought to do this. It used to infuriate me, because it often meant I had to stand and wait till the elevator got to the fifth floor or the ground floor, when it could have been right there or close by if someone had thought to be considerate. All it took was the push of a button, but most people could not be bothered. No wonder we find it so easy in so many ways to let the suffering of our fellow man stand; if we can’t be bothered to make someone’s day a little brighter by pushing one button, how can we be expected to do anything more taxing?
Anyway, the point of all this is, I often thought I should stop pushing the button. I imagined not doing it on my last day in the garage especially, just as a symbolic gesture. A Bronx cheer to all those who never pushed the button themselves. But in the end, I couldn’t do it even then. I felt like I’d be lowering myself to the level of the selfish jerks if I didn’t push that button.
Here’s an idea for an interesting thought experiment. Set up some folks with remote controls. Tell them that to keep someone from dying, they just have to push the button every few hours. Would they do it? What if the button-pushing would just keep someone from getting sick? Or living in poverty? Or feeling depressed? Would the subjects push the button?
It reminds me of Desmond on Lost, who had to push a button every 108 minutes to save the world. It’s an interesting metaphor, I think. See you tomorrow.
